Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-12-01
THE NORTHWEST
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY Of OHIO.
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IA GLORIOUS FOURTH. -

Iu the journal of Seth Pease, pub
lished in Whittlesey's "History of
Cleveland" the following occurs:
MONDAY, July 4th, 1796-We that
came by land arrived at the confines of
New Connecticut and gave three cheers
precisely at 5 O'Clock p. m. We then
proceeded to Conneaut, at five hours
thirty minntes, our boats got on an
hour after we pitched our tents on the
east side.u
In the journal of General Cleaveland
occurs the following:
ION this creek, 'Conneaught,' In
New Connecticut land, July 4th, 1895,
under Gen. Moses cleveland, the sur
veyOrs and men sent by the Conneeti-
cut Land Company TO survey and settle
the Western Reserve, were the first
English people who took possession Of
1t.
"We gave three cheers and
ehristened the place Fort Independence;
and, after many difficulties, perplexi-
ties and hardships were surmounted
and we were on the good and promised
land, felt that a just tribute of respect
to the day ought to be paid. There
were in all, including women and chill
dren, fifty in number. The men, under
Capt. Tinker, ranged themselves on
the beach and fired federal salute of
fifteen rounds and then the sixteenth
in honor of New Connecticut. Drank
several toasts. +. Closed with
three cheers. Drank several pals of
grog. Supper, and retired in good
order.n
Three days afterward Gen. Cleave-
land held treaty with the chief of the
Massasagas, Paqua, whose village was
at Conneaut Creek. The friendship of
these Indians was purchased by few
trinkets and twenty-five dollars worth
of whisky. From these records we
may Judge that Gen. Cleaveland and
his followers were jOvial set.
John Barr, in his sketch of the West
ern Reserve published in the National
Magazine for December, 1S45, says of
this party:
''The sons of Revolutionary sires,
some of them sharers themselves in the
great baptism of the Republic; they
made the anniversary of their country's
freedom day of ceremonial rejoicing.
They felt that they had arrived at the
place of their labors, the-too many of
them sites of home, as little alluring,
almost crowded with danger, as were
the levels of jamestown, or the rocks
Of Plymouth to the ancestors who had
preceded them in the conquest of the
sea coast wilderness of the continent
From old homes and friendly and
social associations, they were almost as
completely exiled as were the caval-
iers who debarked upon the shores of
Virginia, or the Pnritans who sought
the strand of Massachusetts,. Far away
as they were from the villages
of their birth and boyhood; before
them the trackless forest, or the un-
traversed lake. yet did they resolve to
cast fatigue and prvation and peril
from their thoughts for the time being,
and give to the day its due, to patriot
ism its awards. The first set
tiers of the Reserve spent their landing
day as became the sons of Pilgrim
Eathers-as the advance pioneers of a
population that has since made the
then wilderness of Northern Ohio to
bloom as the rose,' and prove the
homes ofa people as remarkable for in
tegrity, industry, love of country,
moral truth and enlightened legisla-
ture as any to be found within the ter
ritorial limits of their ancestral New
England.
On the 9Th of July, the work
men of the expedition were employed
in the erection of large, awkwardly
constructed log building; located on the
sandy beach on the east shore of the
stream and naming it Stow Castle,
after one of the party. This became
the store house for the provisions, and
the dwelling place of the families"
At this time the white inhabitants
west of the Gennessee river and along
the cnasts of the lakes were as follows:
The garrison at Niagara; two families
ut Lewistown, one at Buffalo, one at
Cleveland. and one at Sandusky.-
There were no other families east of
Detroit, and with the exception of a
few adventures at the salt springs of
the Mahoning, the interior of New
Connecticut was an unbroken wilder
ness. There had been, however, o few
families displaced by Ensign Arm
strong, in 1775, as mentioned in chapter
".
The work of surveying was COM
menced at once. One party wentI
southwark on the Pennsylvania line to
the 41st parallel, and began the survey.
Another, under Gen. cleveland, coast
ed along the lake to the mouth of the
Cuyahoga, which they reached on the
END of July, and there laid the found
alton of the chief city of the Western
Reserve and named it in honor of Gen.
Neaveland.
GENERAL LCLEAvELAND.
Gen. Moses Cleaveland was born in
Canterbury, Connecticut, about the
year l775, and graduated at Yale Col
lege in 1777. He was bred lawyer,
and practiced his profession in his
native town. He married sister of
Sen. Henry Champion, of Colchester,
and died at Canterbury, in 1906, leav-
ing large fortune. He was q man of
note among his townsmen, and often
represented them in the Legislature of
Connecticut. In person, he was of
medium stature, thick-set and portly,
and of very dark complexion.
THE SETTLEMENT OF CLEVELAND.
AS early as 1855, there was a French
stAsf6i9 within the present limits of
Cuyahoga county. On Lewis Evans
map of the middle British Colonies,
published that year, there is marked
upon the west bank Of the Cuyahoga,
the words French House, which was
doubtless the station of a French tra-
der. In 1776, the Moravian missi on
ary, Rev. David Zeisberger, with his
Indian converts, left Detroit and ar